Association Management Company Benefits
Association Management Companies are businesses that provide a professional, turnkey, centralized office that serves as the client association's headquarters. The overhead costs for the professional offices are shared by other association clients at the AMC. Based on the concept of shared resources, specialists are drawn from the pool of personnel resources and assigned on an as-needed basis.
Each association pays only for the time the staff specialists work on the association's needs. The association benefits from the professional expertise for a fraction of what it would cost to hire full-time staff - essentially, associations receive full-time expertise for part-time needs. In addition, since the firm is working closely with other associations, there's a natural transference of ideas and successes - what works well in one organization often works well in another.
AMCs have been serving associations for over 100 years. An association management company offers cost savings and technology innovations due to economies of scale.
Efficiency is one of the key guiding principles of AMCs. Efficiency, coupled with Expertise and Experience, are what the American Society of Association Executives & Center for Association Leadership (ASAE) AMC Council, found to be the critical operating principles of any professional AMC. (Joanne J. Cole, CAE, CMP, Principal of PMA is a Past Chair of the AMC Section Council.)
Efficiencies can be found in many different areas including:
- Technology investment, upgrades, and training
- Buying power and participation in discount purchasing programs
- Systems and procedures for managing the association
- Staff experience with issues important to associations
- Team assignments - again, full-time expertise on staff to meet the part-time needs of the association in such areas of accounting, graphic design, editorial, public relations, and marketing services, website management, etc.
AMCs have unsurpassed expertise in managing all aspects of membership organizations. Due to the variety of professional associations with which an AMC works, an ideal environment is cultivated so that:
- Cross-learning benefits the association
- Association management best practices are shared by team members
- Professional development and staff training is ongoing
- Team members are specialists in the management of exempt organizations
- Uniform operating procedures are followed, saving the association time and money
AMCs, due to their multiple association relationships, have a great deal of experience in serving a wide variety of organizations and helping them meet their organizational objectives.
While outsourcing is a new concept for many corporations, smart associations have been using AMC's for over 100 years.
Contact Joanne Cole, NJ Association Management Company Expert
Joanne Cole welcomes inquiries from board members and volunteer leaders to discuss your organizations' issues. Ms. Cole welcomes media and press inquiries. She can be reached at jcole@association-partners.com or by calling Joanne at Professional Management Associates, Hillsbough NJ at 908-359-1184. (Just north of Princeton, New Jersey)
PMA History